AMONG OURSELVES.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 260, 2 November 1928, Page 11

AMONG OURSELVES.

A WEEKLY BUDGET.

(By CONSTANCE CLYDE.)

In his book on "Self Determination in Children," Homer Lane, the noted psychologist, presents the case for individuality in youth with much more common sense and ability than is usually the case. His work placed him in a reformatory, and he came with the ideas that suppression was the right and only method. He discovered, however, that the boy had two natures, in the playground heroic, altruistic, self-reliant, in the school room dull and submissive. In neither cage, however, was there real delinquency. He traced the trouble back to the earlier years of life, and found a continual thwarting, as evidenced in the common incident of the child wanting to ring the door bell for mother, and shrieking loudly when denied this quite legitimate show of individuality. This thwarting creates the desire to possess rather than to make, to have rather than to do. One cannot agree that a criminal life is often the result of this poor training, otherwise crime would be more frequent, but what may |be called "defeatism" in life may be made more likely.

THE MIGRANT IN NEW ZEALAND. In "Time and Tide," Kathleen Ussher, writing in England, rebukes Jessie Mack&y, the New Zealand writer, for her ''pessimistic" report of migration to New Zealand, published recently in that journal. Miss Ussher prefers the breeziness uf Hector Bolitho, whose book on our Dominion is making us known in England in the way most readers like. Hector Bolitho is the clever writer who spoke of the "long, long twilights" in New Zealand. Even in other respects most British readers should be guided rather by the allegedly sombre lady of Christchurch. Many quotations are given from Mr. Bolitho's book, and to the picture of the migrant with everything provided for him in New Zealand, we must add the rebuke of his woman admirer, Miss Ussher, for those that will not "do as the brave old pioneers did," quite forgetting that conditions are now quite different. However, the question of migration has at least aroused interest in the Homeland, through these two writers, and this is to the good. MUSSOLINI ON WOMEN.

The great dictator has been confiding i his profoundly anti-feminist views to readers, and it is evident that he is still some twenty years behind the times even as regards his views on what women desire. He seems to think that manishness is their object, in spite of the fact that we are attempting (perhaps overmuch) rather to feminise politics than to masculinise ourselves. One fact, however, comes out of the welter of words—Benito states that he likes the modern bobbed hair. "Not one woman in a million comes to the fore in art and literature, etc.," he says later, forgetting that much the same could be said of men—all is dependent on how we define "coming to the fore." For many paragraphs he gives us pen pictures of strong men, amused by women or interested in them, yefc never swerving aside, or losing ambition for their sake. For Mussolini there is no Marc Antony, but presumably the Dictator would say that Antony was not a strong man, in spite of historical statements very much to the contrary! This way of reasoning is by no means uncommon.

A DANISH LEGISLATOR. Just retired to the Upper House (Landstring) of Denmark is Fru Nina Bang, who has been the first woman Minister of Educatiou in that country; She began her public life as a teacher, in a boys' school, there being no idea in Denmark anyway that the proud spirit of boyhood is not to be under the control of a woman. Later, a historian herself, she married a historian, and is now taking up her writing once more. However, she has not escaped calumny, as complaints were made that, while in office, she assisted overmuch her own party, the Social Democrats. A STRANGE INSTITUTION.

The "Run Straight Society" i 3 perhaps the strangest association in the world. It was founded by a Miss Marjorie Lvans in conjunction with an ex-burglar, and the only members eligible are those who have been in gaol. They must however, be firmly resolved never to <*o there again. It is not stated which particular ex-burglar la treasurer of the funds, as rent has to be paid. However, one of their meeting places is a church in Mark's Lane, London, which is perhaps given gratis by an interested cleric